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Sitting central bankers no longer speak of easy-money policies as "taking out insurance," just as commercial-bank CEOs won't soon be heard admitting that they are dancing to the tune of easy credit "until the music stops." And never again will a senior administration voice utter: "Deficits don't matter."

Given the way these comments from the prior decade echoed ominously in the credit crisis and its continuing aftermath, they would now fall under Michael Kinsley's widely cited but apt definition of a politician's gaffe: "some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say."

Yet the stock market's jump following the Federal Reserve's detailing of an indefinite plan to buy $40 billion worth of mortgages per month until job growth picks up shows that this does indeed represent a generous insurance policy–of the sort that former Fed boss Alan Greenspan has described taking out in the late 1990s and early 2000s—against economic stagnation and the "Y2K + 13 Crisis" of expiring government stimulus.

THE BUOYANT RESPONSE—after the financial markets already had been in rally mode for months, inflation expectations were off the lows, and the economic data (ex-employment) had been improving, relative to forecasts—suggests that the Fed's plan, plus easy-money regimes in Europe and China, wasn't as much acutely needed as eagerly desired, by risk seekers unsure it would come until it was announced.

Aside from serving as a powerful statement of Chairman Ben Bernanke's resolve that ammunition unused is ammunition wasted, this plan removes from the discussion the numbing debates of what the Fed will do next, eliminating possible positive and negative market catalysts. Each month, the central bank will absorb mortgage securities worth around $40 billion, an amount about double the monthly pace of inflows into stock mutual funds during the 2003-2007 bull market's calmest years.

Of course, that cash won't directly, or even necessarily indirectly, go into stocks. The program will, however, top up the overall capital market bar tab each month, freeing money to be spread across the risk spectrum.

Measurements of the vigor and breadth of the S&P 500's climb to a four-year-plus high of 1465 are of the sort that typically hand the benefit of the doubt to the bulls. Yet enough short-term excesses have built up in the past month's persistent ascent that caution, or at least some tempering of upside expectations, seems called for.

Larry McMillan of McMillan Analysis, whose array of technical, options, and sentiment gauges have kept him looking for higher prices most of the summer, remains bullish. But he suggested Friday that "some profits should be taken off the table," because of the prospect that a "stronger-than-usual correction is probably not far away."

Separately, the astute investment advisor featured in this column as the "mystery broker" proved correct in calling for an S&P 500 high this summer, a prediction aired here in May with the index around 1300 and again in early August. He's looking for continued moderate upside, but says the S&P could be capped near 1500, putting it at the forward price/earnings multiple of 14 that accompanied its 2010 and 2011 peaks. His working assumption: a 2012 high not too far above today's level before Election Day, punctuated by a 5% to 10% correction.

Managed-care provider UnitedHealth is a relatively tame stock, trading at levels first reached seven years ago. It's also not particularly geared to broad economic trends. True, it helps capture the huge (and largely government-linked) health-care sector, but is UnitedHealth a world-class company, or merely a big one? It wasn't even among the 10 biggest companies by market value outside the Dow, though evidently the index committee was loath to add high-priced tech, energy, or bank candidates that are larger.